


Cute When He's Mad

by frozenCinders



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M, this almost ended up being a character study by accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 05:16:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18067292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozenCinders/pseuds/frozenCinders
Summary: He sees the way Deidara interacts with others, the way he tends to steer conversations towards the abstract, the way he can respect just about any reasonable point of view, the way he can mostly brush off any teasing by Kisame or Hidan.Tobi is another story entirely, of course.





	Cute When He's Mad

No matter how many times he repeats the sentiment in his head, Obito is always amused by Deidara's idea of how an Akatsuki member should act. "If you're in the Akatsuki, you should act cool!" is such an adorably childish statement, even if it makes some sense. As Tobi, he pretends to think Deidara must be older and wiser than him, but Obito is well aware of the fact that Deidara is technically still a teenager-- if only for about another year, if even-- clocking in as the youngest Akatsuki member. It would be by far, too, if not for Itachi.

It's somewhat hypocritical, as well, with how easy he is to rile up. He sees the way Deidara interacts with others, the way he tends to steer conversations towards the abstract, the way he can respect just about any reasonable point of view, the way he can mostly brush off any teasing by Kisame or Hidan.

Tobi is another story entirely, of course. It seems Deidara has a sort of patience threshold for each individual that doesn't regenerate. Obito numbly realizes that most people just call that disliking someone, but it doesn't make it to the forefront of his mind. It's not as if he gives Deidara much of a chance to forgive his antics, anyway, since his fingers always itch to push Deidara's buttons more than anyone else he's ever met.

It's occurred to him more than once that he could get a wonderful reaction out of Deidara if he were to reveal his true personality, even for a brief moment. He gets a mental image of Deidara's one visible eye widening as he pauses whatever he's doing, "was that him just now?" written all over his face. Then, he'd go straight back to his irritating foolish school boy act and pretend nothing happened, no matter how much Deidara interrogated him. He imagines him demanding an explanation over and over, voice raising to a yell by the fourth time or so Obito ignored him before he huffs angrily and faces away, begrudgingly giving up.

Obito has had plenty of opportunities to memorize how Deidara looks when he's angry. The way his eye closes and his face twitches before it opens back up with a dangerous look to it, the way he grits his teeth like he's trying not to lunge at Tobi and bite him. That could be fun, being such an endearing puppy's chew toy.

There was one time, in fact, where he took a risk and activated his Sharingan for just a few seconds, only to help in analyzing and memorizing Deidara's face. He's glad he did it, because Deidara noticed almost immediately that something was off, and his face quickly changed to a rare one of shock and desperate confusion, a hand coming up to the contraption on his other eye as he stared Obito down. He deactivated it before Deidara's hand had even finished raising and proceeded to play the fool, looking around behind him and yelling at whatever could have spooked his dear senior. Deidara then mumbled something about how he must be seeing things and, although Obito swears he doesn't even have a heart anymore, he felt his pulse race with thrill regardless.

Deidara was subtle about it at first, but he's recently been much more clear in pestering Itachi to "train" with him. Obito is fully aware that Itachi's eyes are fading and that he'll never agree to humor Deidara, and he is equally aware that not knowing whether his carefully trained eye is in full working order or not will drive Deidara up a wall and lead to more frequent outbursts.

At least, he thought that was how it would work. He's actively bothering Deidara, complaining genuinely that he's bored, yet nothing he says earns him even a side glance.

"Come on, let's go kick some bad guy butt or something! ... Hang on, we're the bad guys," he pretends to realize. "Oh no... I hope Pain didn't hear! I did my words bad! I used words for evil! Is that part of the Akatsuki grand master plan?!"

He goes on and on, feeling quite like a kid again, but Deidara never responds. He only continues staring at his scope and occasionally making minor adjustments to it, the eye it usually covers closed so it doesn't get used to normal vision again. He only opens it whenever he puts the scope up to it again, looking around as if waiting for a hallucination to pop up "again". At one point, Obito pretends to faint, but the only attention he gets is a squirrel locking eyes with him when he looks up. Even it quickly becomes content to ignore him, and Obito has to hide legitimate frustration over something so petty. He typically determines whether or not something deserves any sort of emotional response based on how it would sound in a courtroom. "Well, I was acting like an idiot and my assigned partner wouldn't yell at me..." doesn't paint a pretty picture.

He normally uses only his words to bother Deidara, but since they're clearly failing him today, he resorts to dramatically draping himself over Deidara's back, placing his hands directly where Deidara needs to see. He finally gets _some_  kind of reaction, in the form of a quick, harsh shrug and Deidara using the hand that isn't holding his scope to wrench Obito's away from him with surprising strength.

"Woahhh, Deidara is strong! Who knew?!" he lightly digs, figuring it's time for insults. "He looks so girly and dainty, I never would have thought! Hey mister squirrel, did you know?"

The squirrel says nothing. Deidara still doesn't respond, either.

Fresh out of ideas, Obito pauses briefly, allowing a moment of silence to act as the calm before the storm, before he quickly snatches the scope from Deidara. His hands and eyes widen in surprise, his other eye opening by accident before quickly closing again, and he checks the ground in case he dropped it somehow before whipping around to face Obito.

"Ohh, so you do know I'm here! I was starting to think I turned invisible."

"Give it back, mm," Deidara commands, surprisingly level-headed for the moment.

"Huh? Isn't it busted anyway? I thought I would find a lake to throw it into."

Deidara lunges at him at that, which Obito readily dodges.

"Fuck off, I'll throw _you_  into a lake!" he (fittingly enough) explodes. "What the fuck is wrong with you today, hm?! Can't you see I'm busy?!"

Obito puts on the cutesiest voice he can muster and strikes a girly pose to match.

"Maybe I want you to only look at me! ❤️"

"Tobi--" Deidara starts rather angrily, but Obito suddenly realizes he can get even _worse_  and has to cut him off.

"It's not my fauwt Deidawa wooks so pwetty when he's angwy!"

Obito doesn't dodge the next lunge in time because he's too busy trying not to laugh, which one would think couldn't be hard once the air is knocked out of him from Deidara tackling him to the ground. He laughs anyway with what little breath he has and surrenders, holding the scope up a good ways away from his body. Deidara snatches it back but sits there for a moment like he's deciding how to punish Obito.

"Aww, don't hit me! Come on! I'm fragile!" he lies, just to see if that baits Deidara into doing it anyway, since there's no way he'd hit him if Obito asked for it.

"I might. If you don't tell me what your problem is, mm."

"Huh? Is there a problem? What problem? Is it mine?"

Despite Obito's best attempts to ruin the atmosphere, it gets a bit heavy. He thinks he could get away with resting a hand on Deidara's hip, if only for a moment, and he almost acts on that thought before Deidara sighs, rolls his eyes, and gets off of him.

"... What would it take to get just one honest answer out of you, mm?" Deidara asks, and Obito feels oddly seen. For a split second, he almost wonders if it's worth keeping the Tobi act up.

"What do you mean? I'd never tell a lie to Deidara! ... Uh-oh, does Deidara think Tobi is untrustworthy..?!"

"Was my eye really acting up? Or did you actually..."

He trails off, clearly reluctant to ask Tobi of all people if he were somehow capable of using Sharingan. He decides to say yes if Deidara does manage to ask, just to see. Maybe it's because he knows he won't say it.

"Nevermind, mm. Just quit bothering me today."

"Hmmmmmm," Obito pretends to contemplate. "... Fine. But only today!"

He then motions as if he's zipping his mouth, an action which Deidara actually sees this time.

"And don't call me pretty again, wiseass, mm."

Hypocritical yet again, since he just got done demanding the truth out of Obito. Oh well. Obito has been of the mind that the truth only complicates things for quite a while now.

**Author's Note:**

> hi my name is kris and i haven't watched naruto in a million years but suddenly decided that i really like obito thank u


End file.
